Friends' Quiz postponed

Due to circumstances beyond our control â€“ unplanned maintenance at the venue and no access to a generator in case of load shedding that night â€“ the Quiz has been postponed until October 19. Any queries to Andy Wilding andywildingfmr@gmail.com

CPYWE to give 67 minutes for Mandela

The Civic Centre concourse will be the venue when the 45 young musicians of the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble and the 32 members of the SA Army Band give a concert of 67 minutes for Mandela. The concert will take place at 11 am on July 18.
Under the direction of the CPYWEâ€™s conductor Faan Malan and the SA Army Bandâ€™s Captain Vernon Michels, the musicians will play separately and together, blowing up a storm to celebrate the South African icon, Nelson Mandela. You will hear such favourites as a Frank Sinatra medley and a South African medley of popular local songs.
With the help of Fine Music Radio and Pick n Pay, the two groups will be hosting 100 children from the disadvantaged communities, who will have a meal sponsored by the giant retailer.
Enquiries CPO Outreach Manager Laurika Steenkamp tel 072 293 0954 or laurika@cpo.org.za

Western Cape Provincial Parliament congratulates Brandon Phillips!

The Western Cape Provincial Parliament passed the following resolution on June 25: â€œThat the House congratulates Brandon Phillips from Mitchells Plain who was appointed resident conductor of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, who started playing instruments at the age of 11 years and conducted the orchestra of the New Apostolic Church since the year 2000â€¦.â€

The CPO Congratulates...

South-African-born Sir Michael Lawrence "Mick" Davis has been honoured for his work on the Holocaust Commission in the Queenâ€™s Birthday Honours List for 2015. He has both British and South African citizenship. Sir Michael has been a supporter of the CPO for years and we congratulate him on this momentous honour bestowed. Says CEO Louis Heyneman, â€œIn a world of mostly bad and upsetting news, it was such a pleasure to hear this announcement. We are also proud to be associated with your magnanimous and generous contribution to making the world a better and more pleasant place.â€

CPYO violinists become fiddlers

Ayrshire fiddlers from Scotland playing a kwela? You better believe it! When the Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra came to town last week, young musicians from the CPYO joined forces with them for a few numbers, including a Scottish folk song, a kwela and the SA National Anthem, which the fiddlers also learnt in no time at all! The concert, at the Rhodes High School in Mowbray, had members of the Caledonian community in Cape Town dancing Gay Gordons in the aisles and also at a ceilidh afterwards. It was heart-warming to hear the praise heaped on outreach manager Laurika Steenkamp and orchestra attendant Abdullah Trout and his crew for making their visit to Cape Town so special. The fiddle orchestraâ€™s blog said it all: â€œThe sound that came of the two groups playing together was phenomenal. One of the senior violinists from the Cape Town orchestra, Siya (themba Nteta), led us in a song Pata Pata. He was very talented and managed to get every AFO player smiling and moving about and that is no small feat. The audience at this concert was the best I have ever seen.â€

Season tickets being renewed

A reminder to renew your seats for the next season -- new subscriptions and single seats open on August 11. The concerts, all at the City Hall at 20:00, are:

Tickets from R150 â€“ R230. One new and one renewing subscriber will each win a pair of seats to the Cape Town Concert Series / Maria Kliegel recital at the Baxter Concert Hall on November 14.

Bookings for FOM Gala open to Friends on 1 August

The series will be followed by the FOM gala concert, with Antonio Pompa-Baldi performing the Brahms Piano Concerto no 2 and with Bernhard Gueller and the CPO opening the concert with the Brahms Symphony no 3. Tickets will be available from Computicket / Artscape Dial-A-Seat 021 421 7695 at R450 for Friends (preferential booking from August 1 â€“ 7 ) and open to the public from August 12. Tickets are R500 and, for the platform, R200.

CPO / FOM / FMR Survey

You have until July 31 to tell us what your favourite classical works are. Fill in the form on our website or click here.

Five things orchestras need to do differently to survive

According to Kate Whitley and Christopher Stark, the founders of the innovative Multi-Story Orchestra, which performs to audiences in different places in skinny jeans with hipster beards, washed down by a beer or two, there are several things we need to do:.

Never dumb anything down â€“ people know when they are being patronized

Think about how it looks to an outsider and know that a lot of elements of traditional live classical music performances can come across as very confusing

Be inventive with programming - donâ€™t necessarily follow the traditional classical concerts of an overture, concerto, and symphony

Donâ€™t talk about classical music using words that no-one understands

Chad Hendricks -
from Youth Orchestra to Len van Zyl semi-finals

When Chad Hendricks joined the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra as a trumpeter in 2009, little did he know that it would set him on a path to conducting. Chad played his instrument for a couple of years, joined Brandon Phillipsâ€™ conducting class, and then stood up before the CPYO and conducted it for the first time at a youth campâ€¦ and has never looked back. Next, Chad conducted the CPYO junior string ensemble and began to take private lessons with Phillips for a few months. He also taught at the Academy until his university studies and commitments he had with the Grassy Spark band all made demands on his time. While this was not his first exposure to conducting, it was when he conducted the CPYO at a concert at Hugo Lambrechts that he realized that he could make it a career.
Chad was one of eight chosen to progress to the semi-final round in February of the 3rd Len van Zyl Conductorsâ€™ Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2nd competition.Read more here